Tex Ritter

Presenter0:00

This download is the only extract the BBC has of this edition of Desert Island Discs. The presenter was Roy Plumley.

Tex Ritter0:08

I was born in East Texas.

Tex Ritter0:11

That's uh Deep East Texas. I was born on a

Tex Ritter0:15

A cotton farm. It was a farm and a ranch. We had a lot of cattle and hogs and peanuts. We grew we grew corn, but cotton was the money crop, except if you had a cattle that were sold each year. Yes, so you learned to

Presenter0:27

To write and A r Open Yeah.

Tex Ritter0:29

Uh

Presenter0:29

Who has a boy?

Tex Ritter0:31

Yes, I did, Roy, but as far as the shooting is concerned, I

Tex Ritter0:35

Shop

Tex Ritter0:36

With a shotgun, not a pistol, that came after the movie era.

Presenter0:39

Star. Yeah. Tex, you've made so many records of the old western songs and sung so many in your films. Are you a collector of them?

Presenter0:47

Uh

Tex Ritter0:47

Yes, I started very early.

Tex Ritter0:50

collecting the cowboy songs, the old folk songs of the Southwest.

Tex Ritter0:56

It's might call

Tex Ritter0:58

me one of the lucky people in the world that ended up making uh

Tex Ritter1:02

A vocation of my avocation, making a living out of my hobby.

Tex Ritter1:07

hobby that I started early in life. Wherever I go I like to take Western music with me because it's my favorite type of music. I like all kinds of music.

Tex Ritter1:17

But Western music, my favorite.

Tex Ritter1:20

What brought you into show business, Tex? How did it all start?

Tex Ritter1:24

Well, when I was in the University of Texas I had worked up a kind of a lecture recital called The Cowboy and His Songs.

Tex Ritter1:33

And, uh, I guess it was that largely that started me

Tex Ritter1:37

Later on. What was your first professional job?

Tex Ritter1:40

A radio station in Houston, Texas.

Tex Ritter1:43

Singing cowboy songs. From there I went to New York City and lived about four or five years. Yes. And that really got you started?

Tex Ritter1:51

Well, yes, I gave a few recitals there and I was in a few plays and was on the radio in New York and then in

Tex Ritter1:58

Nineteen thirty seven they brought me to Hollywood to star in the series of Western Pictures. Mhm.

Tex Ritter2:05

When I first landed in New York I met Carson Robison, who had just returned from England with the Mitchell brothers and Pearl Mitchell, the wife of one of the boys. Yes, I remember they were over here for quite a few years. Yes, they were very wonderful to me as a green Texas boy in a large city.

Tex Ritter2:22

Yeah.

Presenter2:22

A radio and stage work took you to Hollywood and all those.

Presenter2:26

Western Pictures

Presenter2:28

Um where are these made, Texas? Is are are the locations in California?

Tex Ritter2:32

Yes, uh most of them are made, or were made in the older days, even before I arrived there, at a little place Chatsworth, about forty miles out of Los Angeles, where you have a lot of different kind of scenery, a lot of rocks, a lot of mountains, a lot of wooded country, a lot of trails.

Tex Ritter2:49

And of course on all locations you have a western street. Some of mine we went further away. We made a lot of em in the high Sierras three hundred miles north of Los Angeles.

Tex Ritter3:00

I think I made four pictures near Prescott, Arizona. We made four in Utah.

Tex Ritter3:06

And I made one in the

Tex Ritter3:08

up in the Jackson Hole country in the winter time in Wyoming.

Presenter3:13

Those worst ones look really like uh filmmaking the hard way, the real hard work with with those

Tex Ritter3:17

Uh

Presenter3:17

Chases

Tex Ritter3:18

Uh Yeah.

Tex Ritter3:20

Well, I think anything that you like to do isn't that turns out to be not so difficult. Of course it's hard.

Tex Ritter3:27

We get up very early in the morning around four so that we can start shooting and the minute the sun comes up.

Tex Ritter3:34

and we work until the sun goes down. But strangely enough, Roy, the most difficult thing I found making Western pictures

Tex Ritter3:41

for the fights.

Tex Ritter3:43

Not the chases.

Tex Ritter3:44

Because the horse does a lot of that work. The fights.

Presenter3:47

Okay.

Presenter3:49

They leave the f

Tex Ritter3:50

Fights to the last in case anyone gets hit. It's always the last thing. You postpone all the big fights until the last. Not only the.

Tex Ritter3:57

You might uh get a few scratches on your face or something like that, or it's a possibility of getting hurt.

Tex Ritter4:04

But also in your interiors you tear up the furniture. Uh

Presenter4:08

Yeah.

Presenter4:09

What's the toughest stunt I've ever asked you to do in a Western

Tex Ritter4:11

It was once in Utah.

Tex Ritter4:14

yet a full gallop, for the heavies were chasing me, the villains, pardon me.

Presenter4:18

Mm.

Tex Ritter4:19

Uh

Tex Ritter4:20

I had to turn in the saddle.

Tex Ritter4:23

facing the villains and shoot

Tex Ritter4:25

with both hands.

Tex Ritter4:27

And it was a matter of balance and equilibrium and I in I couldn't do it. I just couldn't. I had to hold on the candle of the saddle with one hand.

Presenter4:36

Look my

Tex Ritter4:36

Yes, na yeah, I couldn't do it and the stunt man on the picture couldn't either.

Tex Ritter4:41

But we had to finally call on a boy that had been a trick rider, of course, that to them that's a part of a and he was able to do it, doubling me, of course.

Presenter4:50

Text, how's that fine white?

Tex Ritter4:52

That horse of yours, white flash.

Tex Ritter4:53

He's fine. He's twenty one years old. I had him in England with me here in London four years ago. Strangely enough, I haven't used him since I

Tex Ritter5:03

Took him back. He is now in San Fernando Valley. That's where you live? That's where I live. And uh I live in North Hollywood. The horse I keep in Van Euys. Of course the two little towns are just together. Mhm. Both in the city limits of Los Angeles.

Presenter5:17

Your wife uh was

Tex Ritter5:18

You're leading

Presenter5:18

Uh

Tex Ritter5:19

Played in quite a lot of your pictures. About three pictures. She played with me, yes.

Presenter5:22

And when I children text.

Tex Ritter5:22

Edwin and

Tex Ritter5:24

The two little boys. Tommy is nine.

Tex Ritter5:27

Jonathan is seven, getting quite homesick for him.

Tex Ritter5:30

You have Do they show any talent?

Presenter5:32

Uh

Tex Ritter5:33

Footsteps or further. Hoffbren.

Presenter5:34

Yeah.

Tex Ritter5:35

Well, they spend most of their time looking at television and occasionally the saying, Of course television is uh

Tex Ritter5:43

Just changed everything in America, not only show business, but the home life. About all we hear out of'em is

Tex Ritter5:53

Well, many thanks, Tex Ritter. Thank you very much. And as we sometimes say in America when we sign off our show,

Tex Ritter6:01

Always remember, friends, keep good thoughts and keep good company.